A hairdresser who turned heads in her home city of Hull more than 40 years ago with her iconic salon, vivacious lifestyle and passion for pink has sadly died in her adopted home of Vancouver.
Fiona Tunnicliffe, known to all as Fifi, remained a party girl to the end, reports her friend and former flatmate, Sue Mott. Fifi, who was 65 when she died on April 28, was the daughter of Sylvia and Jim Tunnicliffe and attended Kelvin Hall Secondary School in the city.
Hairdressing became her passion from an early age. She was working in salons in Hull when she was just ten and was trained to the highest standards by Glemby International in Hull, remaining a close friend of their colour specialist, Sheila Budd.
By the age of 19, Fifi had her own salon, Curl Up and Dye, in Salisbury Street near the junction with Ella Street, in Hull’s Avenues area. Fifi married in her early 20s and went to live in Saudi Arabia with her husband who worked for a construction-based business; she also inherited two much-loved stepsons with the relationship.
After the marriage failed, Fifi returned to Hull to open another salon and then set up in her own home in Welton. A tribute posted on Arbor Memorial shows she was still delivering perfection for clients in Vancouver two weeks before her death.
(Image: supplied image)
The same tribute noted: “Although I never went out with her, you could just tell she was a party animal!” The flat that Fifi and Sue shared in Westbourne Avenue in 1980 was known as a regular party venue as Fifi built a huge circle of friends through her work, her visits to the Waterfront nightclub and her trips round Hull in her trademark pink Porsche.
Sue, a renowned sports journalist and broadcaster who began her career in Hull, said: “Fifi was a gregarious figure with a mega-watt smile, she had a huge array of friends on both sides of the Atlantic. She had an uncanny ability to know just the right people for every occasion.
“I recall a party that was flagging due to the disappearance of the bottle opener for the beer. Fifi simply sallied forth into the street and found a passing youth whose gift proved to be opening bottles with his teeth.”
Fifi was fond of holidaying alone abroad, secure in her ability to make spontaneous friendships and it was on a trip to Cuba that she met an English/German couple who lived in Ottawa. The spark was immediate and the link formed that would eventually entice her to Canada for the rest of her life.
Sue said it was after Fifi emigrated to Canada in 2008 and began working as a stylist at the popular Suki’s Salon that she once surprised Lord [Seb] Coe – now head of World Athletics – who had popped in for a haircut during the Winter Olympics. “He had last seen her at a sporting dinner in London where she had memorably mistaken him for the famous spoon-bender, Uri Geller.”
On spending the winter in Ottawa, Fifi discovered she “didn’t do cold” and took a road trip across Canada. “After numerous escapades she survived to reach Vancouver.
“Here she settled down for the rest of her life, more suited to the Pacific Coast lifestyle.” Sue said: “When she was granted Canadian citizenship, she kissed the presiding judge in her case who, perhaps unsurprisingly, said that had never happened to him before.”
Fifi continued to work on a part-time basis after a number of health issues began to seriously affect her life. “She approached four different consultants about surgery to heal the ever-increasing pain she was forced to bear but their answer on examination was always that the risk to her survival was too great.
“She maintained hope for five years but was concurrently exploring the MAID [Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying] option seriously.” Her admittance into the programme marked one final four-month spree of happiness.
“She could leave home only for short periods of time but the parties could come to her. Friends flew in from around the world to spend time with her. She had FaceTime chats with her much-loved godchildren.
“Vancouver friends provided a network of tremendous support and entertainment. Fifi organised her own funeral and one of her greatest joys in the final days was a fond and heartfelt reconnection with her step-son, Nick.”
Two days before she died, Fifi went for a flight over Vancouver in a light aircraft piloted by a close friend to say goodbye to the city that had embraced her. On the day of her death friends and a dog called Daisy gathered at her house.
“Even Fifi’s manner of departure from this world was courageously her own,” Sue said of her friend, who knocked back a final glass of champagne before her death. A memorial service was held in Delta, Vancouver, on Saturday, May 10.
Get breaking news in Hull straight to your phone
